Planned Parenthood files suit against Texas for trying to boot them off Medicaid

Joan McCarter

Daily Kos Staff

Monday November 23, 2015 · 11:08 AM PST

2015/11/23 · 11:08

Members of Planned Parenthood, NARAL Pro-Choice America and more than 20 other organizations hold a "Stand Up for Women's Health" rally in supporting preventive health care and family planning services, including abortion in Washington April 7, 2011.

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Planned Parenthood's Texas affiliates are suing the state after Gov. Greg Abbott announced in October that it would stop Medicaid recipients form receiving any health care at all from the organization, following the release of bogus undercover videos by an anti-choice group.

The state's move wouldn't just end state funding for Planned Parenthood services like pregnancy tests, contraception and cancer screenings. It would also end the allocation of federal dollars to Planned Parenthood through Medicaid, the joint state-federal insurer of last resort that is administered by Texas. In 2015, Texas spent $310,000 of its own money on the women's health organization while distributing $2.8 million in federal dollars. […]

The legal challenge in Texas is the latest in a series of lawsuits filed across the country over how Medicaid dollars are disbursed to Planned Parenthood clinics. Texas' move comes weeks after a federal district court in Louisiana temporarily halted similar efforts there until the courts could better examine the issue. Other lawsuits are also making their way through the courts in Alabama and Arkansas.

Federal Medicaid law says that beneficiaries must be allowed to choose from any healthcare provider that is qualified and willing to serve them, which Planned Parenthood has always been. States were warned this summer by the Department of Health and Human Services that they would be violating federal law if they did restrict the Medicaid funding, but numerous Republican lawmakers went ahead with the plan. And so they are getting the promised fight from Planned Parenthood. Here’s the organization’s president:

Politicians may think they can bully us out of providing care for our patients, but we will not back down, and we will not shut our doors.
— Cecile Richards (@CecileRichards) November 23, 2015

SIGN THIS: Defend Planned Parenthood against Republican attacks.

Planned Parenthood files suit against Texas for trying to boot them off Medicaid

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